


epigaea

by Elisye



Series: mayflower | cosmos [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, id add a violence tag but my prose is so purple maybe it's not required lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5327630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisye/pseuds/Elisye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's 4 am and you're not ready for this shit to start again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. telltale none

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> _pray, pray, pray for me --_ (oh lost lamb, if all you wish is to survive, then become a wolf.)

.

.

you shoot straight up from your bed, heart hammering loud, paining to take in air and oxygen, as if your whole body wants to stop struggling and break itself apart right now right here now now now _now now_ \--

you stifle something in your throat, something that burns, something like a sound ( _sob sob sob_ , a clip of memory reminds you) and slowly, slowly, try to ease into a more relaxing position, rubbing your closed eyes wearily. the darkness isn't comforting, not at all, and you almost panic as you relax to the point of falling back asleep, human biology and instincts kicking in of its own damned accord, trying to pull you back back back to that burning hellhole--

" _Shit_ pieces of _murder_." you mutter, hiss, saying the first curses you can think of at random, and maybe a little bit too loudly for this quiet house - you hear your sister turn over in her sleep, on the opposite side of the room, her teeth softly grinding in dream-fueled irritation, no doubt. something about that makes a laugh bubble up inside you, half-choked on habit, and you absently wonder what sort of laugh it could have been.

probably not a happy laugh, you conclude immediately. never happy. you don't really remember the last time you laughed happily, not at all.

that makes you frown again, as you reluctantly slide back down to bed, head lying on your fluffy comfort-scented pillow. you don't have a headache, but you somewhat think you do; you've been belatedly noticing how your head seems to ache in some way whenever you lie down over pillows. like they pain you more than help you. 

you try not to think too much about the implications, eyes glancing over to the nearby clock. ugly, horrid red lights mark out the numbers _4:22 AM_ in the dark, and you just hate everything.

two hours is too much. too much time to stay awake. you've tried before, keeping your eyes glued to whatever possible, sitting up if you felt the faintest pull of sleep. it... used to work, to an extent, but it left you even more tired with occasionally worse dreams, and once you were caught in-between. and forced to go back to sleep. (you woke up in a dungeon, smelled iron and ash and humidity, opened your eyes at the wrong moment, saw the man being beheaded mid-sentence as he plead plead plead I have a son and a daughter I'm innocent I didn't do anything please don--) 

you sigh. long. and hard. harshly, as if trying to force out all your breaths so you can just _die already please_ and stop having shitty not-dreams.

but things don't work that way.

nothing does when you want it to.

so you hesitantly take a deep breath, tensely prepare yourself, and close your eyes, allowing the lull of the air to take you wherever for the next two hours.

.


	2. ferryman of the river lethe (i)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> _(if I ask for a heart, will you give me an arm?) --_ the chessboard is just being set up.

.

.

you wake up to the deadbeat sounds of a cabin.

it's really quiet, you think, at once - reflex, instinct, you blink, mind blanker than blank save for that one thought. nothing hits you, but it hits you soon enough--what a paradise you're in.

or a nightmare, you think, at once - logic and experience, bleeding over to the point that you freeze in place, fingers stilled forcefully. you don't need to breathe, but it sort of just, hurts, a little, to not. 

reflex and logic, together, make for an irrational number of ideas and movements.

you stay as still as a statue in Cassandra's temples, before reluctantly, oh too reluctantly, relaxing.

\--your shoulders slump down a little, with a cautious and calculated curve. nothing happens.

\--you curl your fingers in, out, in, out, in-out, out-in, in in out out, a randomly selected pattern of your choice. nothing happens.

\--you take a pointless breath, eyes focusing forwards, properly, looking ahead. nothing happens.

\--your head turns around. you look. wood wood green green a forest ranger's home if anything. there is just silence ringing in your ears, and nothing seems to happen.

so you take the ultimate test and shuffle a foot forward, silk sole sliding against the wooden paneling. one step. two steps. three steps. nothing happens, and you're a fiery hint braver - another step, that comes up and down, without sound but with effect. 

and still, nothing happens.

you relax much more and walk around.

.

the cabin is very small, if a family were to live in it.

it's a cozy place for two people, at the very most. very rustic, very in tune with the forest outside the open window. there's a flower pot on the kitchen sill, you notice, with a forget-me-not swinging along the weak breezes, making curtains aflutter. your dress sweeps in the wind too - albeit a very different one, misted and invisible to the eyes of the lowest creations.

that's the one convenient thing about your not-dream travels through space and time, aside from the fact that your fatigue and headaches and occasionally violent urges to vomit out all your guts tend to disappear while wandering around places that will never be 'home' in any sense - no one can see you, like this. not many people, at least. the most normal of all creations can hardly fathom your spirit, as it floats by, only the gifted being the wiser. it makes for neat pranks, when easy to set up; another joy for being a semi-ghost, you suppose.

you hum at that, a one-note sound.

you hum, hum, never singing - that's for your sister, really - and hum, until you hear the faintest crunches of leaves under boots and hear the front entrance swing open with copper creaks and sounds.

heavy steps continue in. you turn to their relative direction, legs idly pulled up, setting yourself in a seated position in the air. you wonder if it's the cabin owner. or a thief. but a thief wouldn't really come to a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, unless this isn't nowhere, but how can you tell when you haven't really stepped out of it? oh, yes, there are windows, yes - your eyes falls on that sole forget-me-not on the sill, pretty but lonely, you think, because you can't sympathize - but what if they're illusions? oh, yes, yes, you've fallen for them, once or twice or thrice or too many times, depending on the type. illusion magic on the windows? a hologram worth replicating in the distant future? 

maybe maybe maybe--

one last step reaches you. you tear your eyes away from the forget-me-not, blinking up at a man - he looks like a mercenary, you think, though what a world requires in a knight, you can't assume within ten minutes. but you see him and he sees you and--

he sees you.

he's looking through you?

you look over your shoulder. there's nothing but a wall. no. not looking through you.

at you.

something climbs up your spine and before you hear what the man has to say, seeing only his lips parting open without sound - you rush through the walls, flying flying floating just running away, who cares if you'll hit a rock or a barrier or a trap along the way--?

you run until you think you're lost.

when you're lost, you can be safe, waiting, waiting, waiting to wake up, maybe, maybe--

you wait. you're not patient.

but you'll wait.

 .


	3. atrocity moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (---warning:
> 
> im not sure what a panic attack is genuinely like but that technically does happen in this chapter. so apologies if it doesn't seem like it. do tell me if it really does seem like an accurate image of one tho' - ill have it trigger-tagged.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> _(oh, why do we need air and life, honestly?)_ \-- reality is a mass murderer in its own fantasies.

.

.

it starts with a simple book.

a pretty white book, splattered in bright, bright red.

an artistic style, at its finest. red paint, smeared along the spine, halfway across the front of the hardcover. in the store's artificial lighting, it shines just right, with the exact mixture of varying hues to resemble clotted water mixed with too much dirt and hemoglobin - the rightly expert touch of someone who might have seen blood a lot before, in reality, but probably not, probably not, you really want to consider it a fluke.

because then you can breathe easier if it were understandably fake.

you spot the book on a small table, with upright shelves and bright red signs, all pointing towards the collection. a new release, just a little bit off in price for the occasion. the author is a mystery - or at least, you don't personally care for their name. it's hard to care when you're frozen right at the entrance of the large bookstore, the crowd flowing past you, oblivious in their own private worlds, and the book covers are all so red, pretty shiny dark red, and it hurts and hurts and hurts and you can't breathe at all not at all not not---

you force yourself to breathe, nonetheless, fingers pulled into a tight fist.

one large one in, one large one out.

in, out.

breathe. harshly. even as your lungs hurt and refuse and continue to seemingly restrict themselves in and it just

hurts

like

hell

like a dream of a dream you once had, years ago, and its memory of a ghost is back to remind you that you're its favorite person to haunt.

you shut your eyes, feel your sister's confused eyes on you (finally! finally! where the fuck have you been looking, sister dearest, why did it take you so long to notice that _you're not fine?_ ), and make sure to open them up as you put on a bright, harsh smile.

"Man, this store feels like limbo. Get me, sis?" you can't afford to make something more sensibly coherent, normal to hear for the moment - you just can't think now! not when it's still so hard to breathe through all of this.

"Uh... no, not really." her tone is questioning, puzzled, but otherwise nonchalant. she doesn't suspect any true shit behind your behavior. you're only a bit glad for that.

"Good." you force the word out as pleasantly as possible, without letting it shake. you want to scream and cry and shudder and really, really, die. "Lets go look at the new releases."

"There's a new one right there--"

" _No!_ No, no, sis, other books." you barely manage to keep your voice at indoor level, ignoring the passerby's looks, and pointedly look away from the table with the blood splattered novels. "So. Lets. Go."

you don't pull her around by the hand, but you don't wait for her to move first - you almost break out into a run, and take as many random directions as possible - just going further in, until you've reached a corner where it's silent and absent of people. your breathing is worse, makes you wonder if you did end up running, and something just burns your chest to cinders, lack of oxygen aside.

you wobble over to a nearby bench left in the middle of the area. sit down. set a hand over your heart, feeling the cold sweat that makes your entire body feel like it's caught on fire while seemingly being shivery and clammy. shit, why is it so cold here? you don't look around to find a vent or anything, despite your absentminded curiosity - you just breathe, breathe, breathe, in out, in out. you focus very hard on that, hands soon clasping your knees with a vice-grip, and you try not to think about anything.

you don't explain anything to your sister either, once she finally figures out where you went off to. because that would mean thinking about it all, to the white book painted stylistically with fake blood, probably just red paint, and you don't want to explain why you panicked from something like that.

you don't want to think about it. so you won't. you just breathe.

and try to keep breathing, until you're out of the store, out of the mall, back home where it's somewhat warmer and safer and you feel less likely you're going to die from asphyxiation.

not that the feeling subsides to nothing until the next day.

.


	4. dollface

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the pierrot wants to stop lying, one day -- _(but this mask is just so hard to take off)_  
> 

.

.

you smile and you smile and

you want to try not smiling, one day.

.

"What's wrong?"

you perk up, eyes lifted off the book, fingers tapping the blue spine with habitual interest. you shoot your sister a look of curiosity - and instead of receiving an immediate response, you see her eyebrows furrow a little more, almost towards concern.

"You okay? Seriously?"

"Of course," you scoff, channeling an even more stereotypical look of curiosity - you catch yourself before you add in a smile, however. a frown, much more natural to your feelings but not to your face, graces your expression. "What, do I look like I'm dying?"

she bristles at that - as expected. "Don't joke about dying in this house." you wonder if it's because it's culturally inappropriate, or because she personally fears the discussions and the memories that she must have associated with death now. the answer is obvious, since you've already wondered about this before. "You just don't look alright."

you almost smile at that - cheekily, to humor yourself in some roundabout way, but you smother it the second it flashes past. "I feel fine, though. Maybe you're the one who's not alright."

"I'm not sick." she looks almost offended.

so you just shrug, glad that your chair's a wheeled one that can turn in loops - you effortlessly look away from her, the shadows casting themselves onto the book instead of light, but your eyes are still alright. you can read even in the dark.

"Better go look into a mirror before you say that sorta stuff, sis."

.

Hannah raises an eyebrow in the same puzzled manner that you've picked up, and you shrug at her - whatever she's curious about, you're not interested in looking into.

"Frustrated with your dreams more than usual?" she asks, anyway, even though she could easily just read your mind and figure out the secret to everything you do. but no, angels are bored existences, and so they'll try a bit of guesswork before moving onto their cheat-esque abilities.

"I'm always frustrated," you say - you don't smile, which is what you would have done, but more on reflex. yes, it feels just right not to smile about this, even if your lips twitch to put something up, some pursed guard against all vulnerabilities. 

"You usually keep smiling through it, though."

"Because Ange would be suspicious."

"Then tell her the truth."

you almost chuck your book at her. almost, because you're partly a bit marveled at how wonderfully your non-smiling face feels right now. there's a harsh curve to your frown, you think, because a flare of irritation ripples through you to the corners. wonderful, wonderful.

"You make it sound as if I haven't tried." and boy, have you tried - and boy, are you still so, so bitter over it.

your aunt frowns in turn, and thankfully halts the conversation there. you get back to your reading with peace.

.

your mother shoots you a few subtle but worried looks during dinner time.

you ignore all of it.

you ignore her even when she comes to you after dinner, a hand hesitantly laid on your shoulder - which you shrug off in a millisecond, like thunder and lightning. you wonder if you did evoke some magic like that, because she pulls back in an instant, as if caught in an electrical death trap.

(oh, oh, you wish it could be real.)

"Don't start preaching at me." you say, being at your most courteous while still being honest - you've been somewhat true to yourself this whole day, which you like.

even if it's exhausting to see everyone questioning and probing into that honesty.

another good reason to keep smiling, even now. no harm done, no one will wonder much. a fluke day of no smiles, and not even a smart person would look to see the sea-level depth behind it. makes for a good way to take breaks from this tiring, breaking mask.

though you can't make it too often a habit, otherwise people will be suspicious anyway - and your mother will come to you with that repulsive guilt worn over her heart, trying to make more secret amends with your entire pitiful family when she can't. not when she was the one who caused everything to fall down like dominoes.

.


	5. a dream without a name (i)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> where life begins, so shall it end -- _(even when it shouldn't have)_  
> 

.

.

you were really young, back then.

maybe five, if you had to guess. you used to be sure of that, but time has done its miserly work well - you've forgotten, the clearest details fraying like worn thread. you don't want to forget, but it happens, happened, and this body just won't stop trying to hide its trauma.

how unfortunate. but even so, you hold onto the treasure pieces, sharp and broken as they are.

red rivets from your fingers as you gaze into the memories in their glassy shapes, but you hardly mind it. you've gotten too used to this, too.

.

.

you were really young, and really naive.

silk draped across the walls and the floors, ink and water paintings lifted upon polished frames that gleamed in the papery light. a picturesque sight of a lovely castle.

and there, you met a little princess, who became your friend.

.

for a princess, you would have still considered her a bit plain.

her hair was the color of trees under the sunlight, a bit pale but a pretty brown nonetheless. her eyes were something else - wide and red, staring and all-seeing, but with the warmth of the heart and its wisdom over anything else.

she didn't have a name to give you - or, well, a name you could understand, that much you are certain about.

if she had a lengthy name, you forgot it when you were still five years old. nothing but the essentials stayed in your memory, marvelous and large as it was. so you only remember her name in the way she smiled, slow and quiet, before pointing at herself eagerly - _Me, Me._

it was a primitive gesture, but more than simple to comprehend. from there on, you only knew her as Mimi, and she only knew you as Mae.

.

there's a certain old memory - you read a book in a library on Earth, about how eternity only begins with a name, and ends as it turns to foam on the river banks of time.

you read the book for a little while longer before keeping it back in its spot - too close to home, too close to home.

.

you were really young, and really naive.

Mimi showed you every inch of her palace - or at least, it seemed like her palace, her home, the way she traversed about it with freedom, with attendants who immediately bowed to her presence and hesitated to look at her red, red eyes - despite the looming language barrier that you could never quite overcome, in the end. the princess might have had the same problems, or perhaps she was slowly overcoming it, comparatively; you distinctly remember her as being a bit older and smarter than you, at least from appearances.

if not her appearance, it was her impression - she had that sisterly effect, unlike your actual sister, who was a raging inferno of stubbornness and grief muddled with childhood conspiracies and missing faith. so differently from your real sister, your best friend was cheery but with a wholesome sense of grace in her manners, cultured beyond her years, and carried herself with enough courtesy to match an adult.

truly, and you doubt you'll ever think otherwise - - she was a perfect princess, made to lead her empire and her people.

so it only makes sense that she had a flaw somewhere, in the eyes of other people.

but at the time, you didn't have her all-seeing red eyes just yet.

.

.

you were really young, and really naive, and you will never trade knowledge for ignorance and bliss.

so at this point, far beyond sunny days and ash-scented flowers, you can only transform the ending into something of worth, and say it wasn't wholly meaningless after all.

.


	6. a dream without a name (ii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a mimicry is the closest thing to necromancy -- _(and so, for penance, let vermilion bloom across your eyes)_  
> 

.

.

"Who are you?"

she asks, she asks, her red eyes gazing deep into your soul.

"I am myself."

.

.

_the palace burns, and you know the color of rage._

_(it's blue, it's black, it's venomous violet and green, and you want death death death **death** )_

.

.

"Who are you?"

she smiles softly, and you know this is a dream. an actual dream.

"Someone who inspired me," you whisper, fragile and shaking. ever so idly, you pluck and unravel threads from the ends of your dress, gold and black and white. not regal enough, but yet, just enough.

you don't watch the brushstrokes of blue across her smile.

.

the dream goes on forever, in an ever-shifting canvas of white and grey and nothing.

"Do you like strawberries, Mae?"

you shake your head pathetically. her tone is soothing and dear, still ages-older than you will ever be. even though her time has long stopped and the sands continue to shuttle down your hourglass, grudgingly. the fact is so sad you don't want to think any more, as usual.

she turns to you, her face unreadable.

but there's an expression, surely, because her eyes are clear with emotion and tear-drop shaped lights.

(is it pity, you wonder, when you're wide awake and staring down at a surprise test, unable to care for your grades or your life or the queer looks people are giving you for not writing down a single answer. you don't have the answers to what you actually want to know anyway, so what's the point?)

.

.

.

maybe, once - you came back.

perhaps decades after the palace was burnt down, because nothing sits here but ruined, eroded, forgotten remains, dotted with small sprigs of green.

you wonder where she is.

you wonder where  _she_ is.

birds twitter in the faraway distance, and no one will give you justice.

.

.

.

the two of you stand in a replica of a half-familiar corridor.

watercolors and wood-embroidered paintings sit on the high walls. you almost recognize the nearest one - of what looks like a crane, reaching out to the halos of the moon and the sun with its seven wings.

there's a small table, with a small bowl. what looks like strawberries have neatly filled it to the brim. the princess takes one, happily chewing on it - she really loved these strawberry-like fruits, you vaguely remember. and funnily enough, that was just right, just appropriate. they matched her pretty red eyes well.

she offers you one, delightedly.

you smile, watery and waning, and politely say no.

.

her eyes are wide and bright, then sad at your weak refusal.

and then, glassy and dead.

(something churns in your heart and in your stomach, but you've seen plenty of corpses by now. the ease of revisiting this is better than you thought it would be, and you're frankly unsure of how to feel about that.)

.

the tapestry burns vividly, smoking from the bodies of blood trying to choke the flames into ash.

you stare down at red-splattered lamellated armor, at ornamental poles carved from cherrywood with flowers and gold silk, tinted orange by the orange room and its oil lanterns - all in flames.

most importantly, you gaze at a body being used as a pin cushion for various spears and daggers and curving swords - darts and poisons and bleeding wounds and scratches, forming a small red sea and sluggish rivers as they cross past the fur-tasseled carpet and the overturned, broken furniture.

it isn't neat work, but it isn't a complete mess either. murder is always gruesome, but this sight only whispers about an efficient organization behind it.

.

the palace rumbles, rushed, crashes down.

.

.

_(just a few minutes, prior - )_

a lady in turquoise blue and jade adornments, smiling in satisfaction.

unknown velvetine words, spoken to herself and to no one and to someone.

a masked man dressed in imperial armor, calmly walking to her side from beyond the double door entrance. she hands him a modestly sized bag that jingles innocuously as he weighs it his palm, nodding curtly with professionalism.

something explodes, in the surreal distance. they walk away, each step made with purpose but none of them in earnest.

_(you scream at them.)_

.

.

the palace burns, and you know the weight of vengeance. 

(it's heavy, it hurts, everything is so so meaningless - - )

.

.

.

"Why," you murmured, at some point - as the flames turned black behind your eyelids.

"What was the point?"

her apparition looks at you with glass-doll eyes, monotone. "Only the past knows. But, perhaps - our human nature is the cause, alone."

.

white and black and a void of stars wash away the flickers of red in your eyes.

you wake up to an alarm clock shrilly ringing by your bedside. your sister angrily shuts it off and rolls back into her own bed. you don't get up, but you definitely don't go back to sleep either.

instead, for a long time, you stare hard at a blank cream wall.

.

(you could do nothing, you could do _absolutely nothing._

the fact that there was truly nothing you could have done at that very moment - is the most heartbreaking thing in the world.)

.


	7. a dream without a name (iii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why are our memories so shallow? -- _(i can't keep you alive with so little to remember)_  
> 

.

.

the puzzle pieces are precious.

although they form a clear white picture, devoid of all mystery in its emptiness.

perhaps if you could find the rest of them, to fill the gaps in-between, you might be able to regain color in these aimless dreams.

.

.

.

she looks at you disapprovingly.

or happily?

as you reach out to her, what little remains of her face blurs into the smoke and the mist. you would call out to her, but you've done it so many times before - hearing instead your desperation echo off the fog to ring into your ears.

just how pathetic are you, really?

.

.

there was one strange dream you had.

a real dream - you must still clarify to yourself. (there are so few of them, so dear, so easily lost in the cracks of your memory.)

you came across a lake.

the water's surface was as white as the fog that rolled around you, idyllic as ever. silence, reigning like a funeral march, something so characteristically perfect that you should be afraid. the entire world of that dream was the same as the lake - quiet, white, pure, frozen.

but you had to scramble the procession, because that's the marker of the guilt you carry, as one of the so many living and dear.

and so, the lake rippled thunderously. 

.

.

she looks at you disapprovingly.

or happily?

or sadly?

her face bears nothing. not a single spec of color.

not quite monochrome, not quite alive either.

fainter than the ghosts of the dead, the sunshine in her hair continues to bleed away to a mucky black and her silken robes stained orange and red and grey.

you just have to reach out to her now - -

.

and shut the coffin.

.

.

.

when the princess laughs, it chimes with a sweetness unopposed.

under the cherrywood you've buried her in, you shouldn't hear it anymore. but sometimes, you still do, and you can only wonder if a part of her hated you for being such a useless bystander.

(don't worry. the feeling is mutual.)

.

.

life goes on.

but the ghost of your memories won't let you.

.

sometimes, you wonder what would have been better.

if you had left the march continue on, let time pass, allowed history to throw it aside as yet another not-dream of little importance.

would you have regretted it? would you have permitted it?

if you just forgot it all - would that have been for the best? for you? for her? would she have wanted you to forget?

...

doesn't really matter anymore - the milk puzzle is already complete.

there are still gaps where color might be.

for the moment, you have nothing better to do than filling them in. (or destroying it all - but are you even capable of that, after everything that's happened?)

.

.

these days, you remember her laugh with a crystalline quality.

sharp, jagged, full of facets of different tints and shades. it sounds like a corrupted recording - shattered in places, like smeared paint all over.

but on particularly bad days, you can hear someone else laughing - trying to mimic her back to life, to haunt you to mock you to remind you and remind you and remind you.

(you don't have enough courage to open the coffin again, purposelessly so. oh, how _frustrating._ )

.

.

.

 

as an empty casket is lowered into the rainy earth, you imagine her corpse in it, as neatened out and as peaceful as possible.

(you can't.)

lying inside there, in utter silence, the rain falls without grief but with weight. there are prayers and there are tears. all the while, you imagine her spirit barely clinging to existence, trying to sieve the air for your thoughts with a frail smile.

(you can't.)

staring down at your shoes, you simply can't bear to watch the casket getting buried under the soil for good.

(it would have been nice if you could offer her the same pacifying rites, but her body doesn't really exist anymore, remember? ahaha, of course you remember. you will never not remember. you would be worse than a true monster to try as much.)

on the way home, watching your reflection in the rainy window, you wonder what exactly she looked like again.

.

.

.

"Did your world like to cremate the dead?"

you stare up at blue skies. the grass sways with a hint of dew.

"Because if it did, maybe it's a good thing you got buried under a burning palace. Your body ended up burning to ashes anyway. And at some point, probably, your ashes got scattered on the winds..."

the hilly plains below are a rich green, going on for nearly forever, occasionally dotted with the shadow of a passing cloud.

but there's a strange, dark blemish not too far away - touched with creeping yellow flowers and eroded stone, only chips of red paint yet remaining.

"I wish I had been wiser, back then. I wouldn't be making all of these assumptions if I had just _known_ \- you know? You get that right, Mimi? Haha, say, Mimi - - "

a bird chirps as it hops along the ruins. 

you just can't stop returning to this sight, lately.

.

.

is there a way to pacify the dead, when you don't know whether they need it?

you've never wondered so much.

.

.

.

she looks at you without an expression, without an emotion, without a face.

her dress flickers, the details changing, swirling, disappearing. so you've forgotten even how queenly she used to carry herself, huh?

well, humans are known for having faulty memories. not that you can ever forgive yourself for forgetting her - when your memories are perhaps the only things letting her live, letting her die, letting her make known the fact she existed.

you smile wryly. "Some friend I was, huh, Mimi?"

her head tilts by the slightest. the yellow flowers in her hair bob with the motions.

at least that much, you can remember.

(it's not enough, though.)

.

the two of you walk through the mist.

walking and walking and walking.

nothing comes to mind.

that's fine. this is only a nightmare, after all.

.

.

.

the puzzle pieces are precious.

but in the end, you can't find the pieces that fit in the gaps.

(did they ever exist? you're sure they did, but...)

taking one last look, you can only sigh and stand up. the puzzle isn't going to solve itself, but you can't solve the puzzle regardless. perhaps you should destroy it. perhaps you shouldn't. the only answer you can find is what's in front of you.

you won't abandon it. but you can't do anything more for it, it seems.

.

it's a thought you can accept much more easily, yet so much more painfully, than you imagined.

.

.

.

the smoke and the mist drapes itself heavily around the world. if there was color, you are certain that at this point, they've all been lost - without light, without shade, without tint or meaning. this is merely it, in other words.

with your hands offered open to her, the princess gingerly presses something small and soft into each of your palms.

looking at them, you find a pair of eyeballs staring at you - the irises glowing a pretty, iridescent vermilion.

looking up at her, Mimi smiles with hollow spaces where her eyes would have normally been, gouged out quite remarkably clean, though there are still thin streams of blood leaking out through them. you would have pointed at them to her, but from a sense of mannerly respect, you decide not to.

she says something, her voice bequeathed last - and then, the dream consumes her forever.

.

you take one last look at your reflection in the violently rippling lake.

despite burning her existence into your form, you don't really look like her - your hair's not as light as hers, your skin's not as healthy as hers. you're not wearing the robes she used to wear.

but you still have her voice and her eyes - sweet and red, respectively.

you make for a very grim-looking version of your best friend, but the fact that you can still describe this new appearance as similar to her - it gets the point of the matter most perfectly.

.

.

you know this won't be enough, but for the circumstances, you'd like to be optimistic regardless.

what tiny fragments that yet remain - you stitch them into the stars of your many memories, as the biggest and brightest of the constellations. as a most beautiful, sorrowful myth that one day, you hope to pass down to someone willing to accept it as a part of reality instead.

you're still not sure if this is the funeral she would have wanted, but for now - for now, you'd like to hope this is enough for her.


	8. a dream without a name (iv)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every monument shall crumble to dust, eventually -- _(and so, with this life, I can only dedicate it to...)_  
> 

.

it bears a weight worth remembering.

these candle wickers fading into non-existence. the fragrance of smoke and vanilla, wafting into nothingness. the room, lit by the jingles of the new year's coming and dimmed by the darkness of anticipation. the room, lit by noise and drowned into silence.

outside, the world is all color, all joy, all obliviousness. you have long given up your protests.

.

.

once upon a time - the color red.

the battlefield is a deep maroon color as you awaken.

war shouts, war dreams, war thirst. a voice, yelling from the horizon - heroics, defeat, plunder, surrender. and then another voice, yelling from the other side of the earth. like an exchange, maybe.

still, it's all kinds of nonsense that have long since escaped your head and even longer since escaped the value of a definition. no matter, regardless. no matter, from the future. no matter, from the past. no matter, no matter.

what matters is the bloodshed to follow.

you will be fortunate. you are fortunate. you were not fortunate, but you have learnt to take your experiences each as something dearly significant to hold.

even if it meant curling up into a ball for hours on in the middle of the brown, red, reddening, darkening grounds - feeling the weight of a body and several hundred more piling up over your astral form - peeking one eye open to stare at a scratched golden helmet, where one gooey eye slowly melted from the burn of a heated knife stabbed cleanly into the eye socket.

your cries were not heard. but that is a most fortunate thing, or else, you surely would have died.

and isn't it supposed to be a good thing, to survive?

.

once upon a time - the color red.

your friend died.

it is not a good thing to be the only survivor.

.

once upon a time - the color red.

a field of bright red flowers.

what a pretty, disgusting red!

the world is idyllic and beautiful. blue skies, white clouds. an autumn chill to the air. people passing by the fields on a peaceful walk, past a placard in gilded gold, talking about sentiments and souls and oh so precious existences.

there are small smiles that appreciate the beauty of the poppies. there are quiet faces that appreciate the deeds of the past.

you find it all so mundane and normal, it almost makes you cry.

of course you don't, in the end, because if anyone can see you - wouldn't that just be embarrassing now?

.

once upon a time - the color red.

your eyes glow a wise but dearly, falsely innocent vermilion.

it looks all wrong on your face - you aren't the one supposed to be having these eyes, ultimately - but you're not going to complain. not when this is probably the only way.

with a sigh, with a little disappointment, you grow up and mold yourself into two images.

would have been nice if she didn't die, because for all the things you do and can do, you know it won't really match up to the possibilities she could have created by herself if she simply lived. simply survived. and wouldn't that have been nice - if she lived?

instead of you.

.

once upon a time - the color red.

you watch some people play hero, and fight off the villain.

the skies are a certain shade of red, as you float about the final site of the final battle - unknown to all, both good and both evil, either good or either evil.  you find this shade of red to be very dull, echoing in a sense, but that's perhaps because you're looking into the infinite quality of the sky and you learnt in science class just yesterday that the light of sun scatters and refracts off particles in the atmosphere.

absently, you pick out dirt from underneath your nails. the villain unleashes his final attack, and everyone dies.

if this were a game, you suppose they would just revive and replay the scenario.

but that's only on another axis of space and time, in another world simply identical in its timeline upto the save point. no world, unless specified, has a reset feature - and you might not know shit about this one, but from the way the villain starts to break apart the foundations of the planet without pause, you doubt that's the case here.

how boring.

regardless of who won, it would have still been boring. nothing can change the past for you, after all.

.

 

once upon a time - the color black.

moonlight streams through only a sliver of a gap in the thick curtains.

tip-toeing to the window, you carefully open it up, and gently set a candle on the sill. you've been told not the fiddle with the lighters in the house, but who gives a shit about that, seriously? you have genuine reasons to be practicing with it, instead of fooling around like kids around your age.

there's a reason you saved up your pocket money to simply buy a _candle,_ if someone had the courtesy and the mind to even consider it.

but like anyone's going to suddenly do that tomorrow morning. no one listened to Cassandra, the poor lady - you listened to her, even if she couldn't listen to you. it would have been nice if she could have, you're sure she would have wholeheartedly empathized unlike everyone else, but you've gotten used to no one believing you anyway so it's fine.

you light the wick, and immediately smell the scent of roses.

you would have preferred poppies, the meaning is much more significant you discovered - but no one wants to start some kind of controversy in the stores you visited, so in the end, a rose-scented candle will do.

"Maybe next year?" you murmur. "I'll light a lot of candles for you, a lot of different ones. You deserve a real funeral, Mimi."

shaping yourself into her isn't really a proper funeral, after all. it was actually more of personal wish of your own to do it, rather than something done for her sake solely. you wanted to remember her, to give back her life, to let her see all the things she should have grown up to see. compared to her, you have very little importance.

but... if she won't come back, then most certainly, you know you need to see her off properly. there are reasons why funeral rites exist in the first place.

"I can't remember the day it happened - and you know, time doesn't always flow the same, so maybe I can never really pin it down. But I'll do it every year, at the beginning of the new year, so it won't be so easy for me to just forget. I've already made a sticky note on my bed for that, actually! Sis was so puzzled, but in the end, she couldn't figure out the riddle, and that's good enough for me. Of course, in case I get amnesia, or something, I should probably find a more permanent way of remembering..."

you hum, softly, the moon curved into a sharp crescent above the neighboring building.

in the utter dead of this night, something wells up in you, profound but heavy, slowly stinging the corners of your eyes. you rub at them harshly before anything further can happen, though.

"I think death is a lovely state to be in, these days. You don't have to deal with all the horrible things in life if you die before then. Or never existed, actually. But if I had to say _someone_ should be alive, regardless - I think you deserve it a lot more than anyone else."

.

.

"May, what the hell are you doing in here?"

"—Oh, sis! I'm... doing some cool occultic stuff! Wanna join me? Gonna summon a ghost and ask it aaaaaaaaaall the answers to the universe and its mysteries!"

"...Ghosts don't freaking exist. Now put out that candle before you knock it over and cause a fire in here!"

"Aww, shucks, sis, do you gotta be so mean to ghosts? They'll haunt you if you hurt their feelings! I really mean it there."

"If they want to haunt me, they can just go haunt someone else's ass - to be that jobless in the afterlife. Now, seriously May, put out the candle. Where did you even get it?"

"Jeez, fine... And where? That's my secret! Like everything is, hehe."

.


End file.
